Gunmen killed two tribal elders in western Afghanistan following their meeting with President Hamid Karzai, a police spokesman said Thursday, according to AP.
The elders were shot in Herat city on Wednesday, a day after they met the Afghan president in Kabul as part of a delegation of elders from Herat province, said Rauf Ahmadi, a police spokesman. Two other people in the car they were driving in when attacked were wounded, he said.
Ahmadi called the killings "a terrorist act" and said authorities were investigating whether Taliban militants were involved.
Karzai condemned the killings and urged authorities to arrest and punish the perpetrators, a statement from his office said.
Karzai is running for re-election next year, and the support of tribal elders is essential for his chances of winning at a time when his popularity has been sliding.
In the northern Jowzjan province, meanwhile, Taliban militants ambushed a police convoy Wednesday, killing an officer and wounding two other policemen, said Khalil Aminzada, the provincial police chief.
Authorities arrested four suspected Taliban fighters who were involved in the attack, he said.
Taliban attacks are rare in Jowzjan and the Wednesday assault suggests militants are expanding the areas where they operate away from their centers in the south and the east of the country.
More than 6,000 people have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press tally of figures provided by Afghan and Western officials.